The Dudeism Forum

Quote from: greatspiritmonk on February 24, 2010, 04:20:58 AM
As regards the Golden Rule it is only half the rule, due to those Catholics reactionaries who needed to keep the population quiet and calm, ......He was killed because He was a reactionary.
And let's not forget that the Dude himself was ready to fight with DaFino before knowing he was a compeer. 

So what your basically saying is:

"treat everyone as you would be treated unless you think you could get away with stabbing them in the back, or kicking them in the nads, with impunity"

Now that makes slightly more sense to me.

You're a harsh pair, and make no mistake 

You have to take this magically Golden Rule in the spirit of its meaning.  That is to say, treat people well, always with best intent.  Of course, yes, sometimes you'll have to be a little on the defensive and you might have to get rough.  No one's saying you can't act in your own best interests in such circumstances, it would be lunacy to stand there and take it, but don't go over the top.

A recent story in UK news would highlight this:

A man's family was tied up whilst the the home was robbed.  After the robber made off the man escaped and chased him down the road, caught up with him and, together with his brother, proceeded to beat the man.  Members of the community then began to join in, leaving the robber a bloody pulp.  The beaten man suffered brain damage and the poor chap whose family was tied up and terrorised has left himself open for prosecution.

The moral is, retribution should be measured, not unchecked.  At the end of the day, if you hold back and make sure all is well, without crossing the line, you'll be in the right and can take that knowledge with you as you walk away.  Crossing the line makes you in the wrong, maybe not as much as the other guy, but maybe more in the wrong.

Just use some judgement on the whole thing, is what I've tried to illustrated here.  Don't be a sap, but don't be an arsehole either

An extension of the golden rule is "tit for tat", which in the game theory sense of the phrase isn't, as it was in the code of Hammurabi, "an eyeball for an eyeball".

For those not familiar with the scientific concept of tit for tat, here's the wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

it basically says, give the other fella the benefit of the doubt. if he continues to screw you over, bail. that is to say, don't retaliate, just don't cooperate with them any more.

nice to know that this rather dudeist modus operendi has some basis in science.

presumably, anyone who has ever studied martial arts (or the tao te ching) knows that force should be the last resort and retribution only fans the flames of the dilemma. it's so cool that the people that could really kick your ass are (or should be) the last ones to actually intend to do so. every martial artist i've ever known has borne peaceful mien generated from this training and also, their own resultant self-confidence.

that isn't to say that under severe threat one shouldn't get an army together and strike, only that it should be the last resort. again, the tao te ching propounds this eloquently.

the big lebowski movie presaged the whole 9/11-iraq invasion catastrophe so brilliantly (neo-con triumphalism and overwrought militancy) that it's almost mind-blowing.

look at what happened when clinton went and broke bread with that nation-fucker, kim jong il. that's what should be done in burma and zimbabwe as well. not lines in the sand and reactionary bombast.

one wonders, though, what should be done about iran. if they really get the bomb, is it incumbent upon the rest of the world to smother them? forget about al qaeda, hussein, afghanistan, burma, zimbabwe, etc. a nuclear iran is surely something to worry about. still, how can one say what is the right course of action in that case? tit for tat in that case would be a total disaster. you can't wait for someone to nuke you before you decide they're a prick.

i guess a lot of the golden rule/ tit for tat stuff doesn't apply on the macro level.

what do you dudes think?

I've long been an advocate of talking before actioning.

The most horrific notion I've come across in politics is the US Republican stance that Obama was wrong to want to sit down and have talks with other nations without preconditions.  I mean, why would Iran want to sit down and talk with America if they had to jump through hoops first?  They don't want to talk at all, so the best thing to do is coerce them.  America is not in charge of the world, nor is it the police of the world, and Obama sees this.  If Chaney his crew want to start up a worldwide fascist state, well, good luck in the next election boys.

The big trouble with world politics is that it's all built on war and secret fiddling.  Iraq became a problem because of Hussain, who we (the UK) conspired to place in power in the first place, and were content to leave there again after the first Gulf War.  Too many American politicans and business men have money tied up in the Junta, so Burma is out of touch.  Zimbabwe isn't a threat to anyone, or of value to anyone, so we're just going to leave it to collapse in on itself.  And, if I were to guess, everyone's waiting for ol' Mr Kim to shuffle into a modestly priced receptacle around the same time Castro does.  Of course, Cuba's not a threat, or a problem, and in fact I think it should be a much admired nation, but, hey-ho.

Hey, how about after we've got this religion thing down we start a political movement?   Ah, yeah, you're right.  Sounds like too much work.  Nevermind.

Tit for tat, that's an interesting concept, which I'll surely check.
I'd like to quote the book Secret Life of a Tao Master where when the student asks the master what he's going to do if attacked while meditating the master answers: I'll kill them and go back to meditation. That is to say wait until the last moment to rely on violence, but if you are on the right side and the need arise do what you have to do to remain alive.
At the end if some criminals try to fuck a stranger in the ass, and the stranger comes out to be Mike Tyson, well, that's their business. We can't know if in that moment we are an instrument of the Tao to regain balance hitting some assholes in their head. Maybe the assholes have exploited a lot of people and we are doing just the right thing. Everything is in the hand of the Tao. 
As regards Iran, not considering the economic implications like the fact that they want to have oil quoted in euro and not in dollars, which would be a problem for the Usa, who luckily attacked Iraq before they were able to do the same thing after having signed business papers with France and Italy, considering the problem from a theoretical point of view Iran is a sovereign country. This means that they have the right to do whatever they want in their garden. If China can have nuclear weapons and Israel can have them too than why Iran should not? I'm not an Islam fan, nevertheless a sovereign country has the right to take its own decisions, and deal with consequences. If the USA government wants really to act as the savior of the world why it doesn't looks at China where civil rights have no translation in Chinese language? Or in Tibet?
Whether in micro or macro terms it's difficult to say if it's better to act preventively or not, what it's needed is the certainty that the threat is real. If someone enters my home at night it's completely his business, but this doesn't mean that I can beat someone in the head because he entered my garden by error.
Probably is a matter of lines drawn, but there are tens and tens of places in the world where there is the need for a savior. Well, most of them have no natural resources though.